Those of us in the ever-growing “haven’t read it in years” category won’t miss Barry Saunders’ race-baiting essays built around Fred Sanford quotes. However, the predictable reactions in “South Raleigh” and “East Derm” were decidedly unfavorable to the failing newspaper.

Years of The N&O effusively pandering to that particular ethno-cultural constituency just went down the drain… glub… glub… glub.

Not all that critical however since that overtly pandered-to constituency never repaid The News & Observer in either subscribers or advertisers.

Like rubberneckers tapping their brakes to check-out roadkill, what might curious on-lookers expect to see in the weeks and months to come from the ailing McClatchy media operations.?

The one certainty is the ever-increasing very red ink gushing from both operations’ bottom lines. No penny-pinching or hand wringing is going to stop that.

Here’s some likely “mile-markers” on their Road to Perdition. Look for some / all of these to come to pass in the months to come in some order.

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All middle management employees to be “unhired”. A “lucky”(?) % of whom will be rehired at significantly lower salaries with a clear understanding that said “rehiring” is subject to immediate termination.

Translation: Come back under even more unpleasant working conditions for significantly lower pay with no job security whatsoever…

Or… join all your former N&O co-workers now working split shifts at Denny’s or the graveyard shift loading trucks at UPS… if you’re lucky.

Combining of all departments – News, Sports, Editorial, Business – between the failing Raleigh operation and the failing Charlotte operation. And that silly Derm edition, but who cares about that?

Going to one Publisher over both News & Observer and Charlotte Observer.

Going to one Executive Editor / Editorial Editor rather than two separate positions.

News for both will become 90% syndicated feeds from a central McClatchy aggregate grabbing anything it can find on social media. The more provocative the better for “click bait”.

Political News will be whatever any Liberal Democrat whack-job wants to submit. Unless RobRielleWHO wants to work for peanuts. He might…

Local news will depend upon un-paid “contributors” who “always wanted to be a reporter”. …. “Carolina CC pool to close on Thursday….”

Sports for both papers will be a couple of eager beaver interns surfing board monkey fan sites for salacious rumors and wild-ass rants from deranged nitwits. Not unlike The N&O’s current “political news” coverage.

Eliminating by at least half ALL executive management personnel.

After years of throwing “the worker bees” under the bus… it’s now time to slice ‘n dice the “suits”. Well past time in the opinion of most former N&O worker bees.

Eventually cutback print editions from “a daily” to 6… to 4… to 3. Before they get to “just 4” the orchestra on this Titanic will already be playing “Nearer My God To Thee”.

The current desperation beg / garage-sale of access to their “digital edition” was as pitiful as expecteded. Regardless, the size of The News & Observer data base of “eyes” will continue to be greatly exaggerated to prospective digital advertisers.

With ever-dwindling advertiser interests, anyone willing to pay anything can get whatever they want in terms of size, frequency and obnoxiousness.

NOTE: If the current proposed NCGA legislation – re: posting of legal notices – passes into law, it will kink the one revenue hose supplying their only source of significant income – legal notices.

With the NCGA under Republican control and with The News & Observer’s long history of publicly defaming and despising any/all Republicans, what are the odds Repub lawmakers will be charitable to their bitterest arch enemy? Bwahahaha…

“On the new N&O menu: Less spinach, more reader-focused coverage” – this is the title of Drescher’s latest version of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Basically they are sinking to the depths of being just another “click bait”, irrelevant, hack website at an even quicker pace. He says they got rid of Barry because he didn’t get enough clicks. Really? Good news – since I got my wife to drop the home delivery and go digital, she’s forgetting to even read it. I too am slowly breaking that N&O habit. WRAL has been gone for some time.

It took us three days to “break the habit” twelve years ago. Never looked back. I get PLENTY of e-copies of Damn Dan Kane’s latest TGU updates. 🙂
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Interesting comment about Barry’s popularity or lack of.
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Based on recent N&O Tweets… they are about one tweet away from TRUMP IS A SPACE ALIEN … TRUMP CONSPIRES WITH ELVIS …

North Carolina’s Public Notice laws are antiquated laws without vendor or marketplace competitive models. North Carolina public notice law currently forces state and local taxpayers to spend millions of dollars annually on hardcopy newspaper legal notices that are non-searchable, hard to read, wasteful and reach fewer and fewer people each year. Many of the public notice laws were established when printed papers were the only public media available. The public notice requirements in state law which always identify “publish in paid newspaper” have no basis other than to help the bottom line of newspapers in the State of North Carolina.… Read more »

Updating the legal “public” notice process to the digital world certainly makes sense to me.
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The effect in doing so will have a dramatic effect on EVERY printed newspaper in the state especially small town papers that are not as “partisan” as the large metro papers.

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NCSU68Grad

2 years ago

Reminds me a friend of my son. He was a “NCSSM” graduate….truly a brilliant person. Went into Journalism. He got a degree from NYU or something like that. Bummed around NYC. Was a “crawler” writer for CNN. Even my liberal son told tales of what the producer wanted on the crawler to get “attention”….regardless of whether is be truth, fiction, or down right hysterical. He ended up going BACK to school and is teaching English or something at a local NYC high school as his J degree was not supporting him. The J Degree is really a dying breed. Zuckerberg… Read more »

I got this 2nd hand but apparently Good Neighbor BELO went ballistic when he heard how Barry was summarily dismissed. And let it be known he (BELO) was NOT pleased AT ALL. That, alas, was not enough to reverse the decision.

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More proof

2 years ago

You might have wondered why a newspaper ever paid someone to be its rock-and-roll reporter. Apparently, the pending failure of the entire enterprise prompted someone within the organization ask the same question.

Said rock’n’roller David Menconi griped on Facebook the other day that “the bottom line is that I need to start getting more clicks.”

I doubt young Mr. Menconi was being “paid” very much at all. But I woulda figured even then he would have “been gone” some time ago. If the N&O “suits” were willing to blow off “the AfAm community” I doubt they much care about the local “rock ‘n roll crowd”.

So, now that journalism is a dying “profession”, why should we continue to fund a UNC – Chapel Hill journalism school? Hopefully the cutbacks will begin there as kids see the quickly dwindling prospects of finding a paying job.

Are there any small local papers left that are not owned by the major city dailies? I think the public notice thing would swing on them more so than on the larger papers as some of them may actually present decent coverage and have some respect of some members of the GA…but I could be wrong.

You are exactly right. There are some fine “small town papers” doing a great civic service. They will be devastated by the proposed legislation… “collateral damage” …. ????
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No idea what J-Schools are doing these days. Certainly no “job market” for newspapers, magazines, etc. I’m sure the arrogant pointy-heads at UNC are still “above it all”.

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Thomas.K

2 years ago

Dude, this was awesome even before I got to “Carolina CC pool to close on Thursday…” My yelp scared our cat.
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The Carolina Country Club faux-aristocrats are the only constituency they have left – The Limo Liberals.
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Salt their fields… salt their fields…